


Re-appropriated Flannel

by lifeisrandom34



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 13:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2734334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeisrandom34/pseuds/lifeisrandom34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn wonders where he fits in the grand scheme of the universe. Luckily, Liam is there to tell him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Re-appropriated Flannel

**Author's Note:**

> For Amanda. Merry Christmas and....you're welcome :)

The shirt wasn’t technically Zayn’s. Liam bought it online sometime…oh, probably back during their first tour when the boys were still figuring out one another’s air conditioning preferences. With all the minutia that came with being crammed into a tour bus with four other guys for the first time, temperature control had fallen through the cracks. It was the kind of thing that didn’t matter until it really, really did. But, Liam didn’t like drama, so he’d just gone ahead and ordered a fleece-lined flannel shirt from a store that generally catered to farmers and other people who worked outside. How Zayn had gotten a hold of it was a tale lost to the mists of time.  
But, there it was, slung loosely around Zayn’s shoulders like it belonged there as he watched the smoke from a cigarette curl away into the night skyline of…wherever they were right now. The boys had just gotten back from a show, which usually meant either going out for post-concert drinks to work off the adrenaline or collapsing into bed without even taking their shoes off. But, Zayn was in an in-between mood. Sleep didn’t seem possible at the moment, but, then again, neither did anything else. So, there he was, standing on a hotel balcony in stolen-or, re-appropriated- flannel, pretending to smoke.  
The door behind Zayn opened with a click and soft footsteps approached him.  
“You look very picturesque.” Liam spoke carefully. Zayn didn’t comment on his choice of the word “picturesque.” Liam was only using it to prove he knew what it meant. Improving his vocabulary was a bit of a thing with Liam as of late. For the most part the other boys let him get away with it.  
“I always do.” Zayn replied, stubbing his cigarette out on the balcony railing. He imagined little pieces of ash fluttering down to the empty sidewalk below. The idea was more melancholy than romantic.  
“Yeah,” Liam laughed a little, curling up on the chaise lounge that Zayn had neglected to use, folding his knees up to his chest, “’Spose you do.” He didn’t comment on the stolen flannel.  
Zayn would never have said as much out loud, but he was glad for Liam at times like this. He loved all the boys, obviously. Nothing would ever change that. But, in the moments of dark in-betweenness, when the world was too vast and Zayn’s skin didn’t sit on his bones quite right, the only one he wanted to be around was Liam. But, maybe the other boys did know this, because the universe seemed to be expanding around Zayn at a dizzying rate and there Liam sat, solid as an anchor, knowing that Zayn felt out of place and waiting to see how he could help.  
“Do you ever worry about, like,” Zayn began, trying to pull the exact words for his discomfort out of the late-night ether and residual cigarette smoke, “Are you ever afraid that you might get used to all this? Like, you’ll wake up one day and it wont mean anything?”  
These kinds of concerns had been voiced before, on multiple occasions by every member of the band. But they didn’t always press in at the sides of Zayn’s ribcage as much as they did right then.  
“We’re in Tulsa.” Liam said, a nonsequiter to anyone who wasn’t Zayn, “Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s the one shaped like a skillet.”  
And that was why Zayn loved Liam so much. He could take Zayn’s vast existential quandaries and turn them into something he could fix. It’s a little more difficult to feel totally adrift in the universe when you can pinpoint your exact location on a map.  
“And, no,” Liam continued, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. Don’t really think you will either.”  
Zayn gazed back at the skyline-the Tulsa, Oklahoma skyline-and considered Liam’s confidence.  
“I dunno. I guess I just, like, feel like all this is happening to me. Kinda hard to keep track of where I am in all of it, you know?”  
Out of the corner of his eye Zayn saw Liam shift forward to sit up straight, letting his hands fall to his lap. Liam studied Zayn’s profile for seconds that stretched into minutes and Zayn wondered if he’d finally presented Liam with a problem he couldn’t solve. Just as Zayn was about to start backpedaling spectacularly, to mutter something about being tired and out of it, Liam began to speak.  
“You hate mayonnaise more than anyone else I’ve ever met.” He said, a nonsequiter even to Zayn this time, “Like, more than is probably normal. Remember that time you threatened to cut Niall’s balls off if he brought a jar of it on the bus?”  
Zayn nodded, puzzled, but really wanting to see where Liam was going with this.  
“And remember when you read the first Harry Potter book to us during a roadtrip and your Hagrid voice made Louis laugh so hard he peed? Or when you stayed up all night with Harry the first time he got wasted and he spend all night puking his guts out? Or when we went to that one sushi place and the food was terrible but everything was funny anyway, cause, like, it was us?”  
A smile tugged at the corner of Zayn’s lips as Liam pulled up more and more memories, the good ones, the ones with friends and family, and some with people who were a little of both. Memories that mattered.  
“So,” Liam was standing closer to him now, having stood up at some point during his speech, “If you’re wondering ‘who you are’ or whatever, that’s who. You, like, are what’s happening. The fact that you’re a popstar and all that stuff is just…” he paused, playing his mental word search, “incidental.”  
Zayn laughed wetly and wasn’t surprised to find his eyes stinging. Liam could be a right Lifetime movie when he wanted to be. Luckily Liam was a hugger pretty much all of the time, which was good, because Liam’s flannel was nice, but it had nothing on the real thing.  
Zayn lost track of how long the two boys stood there, wrapped up in one another on a chilly, dark balcony before Liam broke the silence with a quizzical:  
“Wait, did you steal my shirt?”  
Zayn’s laugh rang out into the quiet Tulsa night. And just like that, he was back.


End file.
